because first and foremost, before anything else, I am me.

It was a bad day and I could not spend any more hours sitting in my car in the parking lot before classes. I took two girls out to a late lunch that day and told them: in a distant past, I did a very bad thing and I haven’t been able to move on from it.

They didn’t ask questions, they just sat there with me, eating.

That day I decided, I was going to quit my job.

Resigning from an established institution was a torture. Convincing your superiors that they could easily let you go, that there would be someone else, and they might be a lot better doing what you were doing, is. a. torture.

Of course they wouldn’t let me go. They offered me positions, new spaces, new title. New office in the city. They were tempting. I could hear my younger ambitious self screaming loud inside my ears.

Who wouldn’t want to be part of an Ivy League team, sitting in that ivory tower, judging everyone while at the same time being an inspiration to a lot of people? Never have I ever in my life been treated better than when I had that title. It followed me everywhere and gave me the privilege my parents wanted me to have. I finally lived up to their expectations, being the trophy kid all my life, ignoring all stabbing knives on my back while smiling in front of hundreds of audience, hoping they would gain some kind of wisdom at the end of the day. What a time to be alive.

But I needed a good cry. I needed to hear music again. Someone just wrote a song for me, about how wonderful I was when I was none other than who I truly was at my core. I needed to cry. Not in-the-shower cry. Not the kind I had before I went to sleep. Not screaming into a pillow, no. Not that kind of cry.

I needed to go somewhere far, and shed that single tear, and meet me again.

It’s been different ever since. Different. Living your true self is a struggle when obviously it’s a lot easier to portray what everyone thinks of you. So I cut everyone loose and let them go. Appointments, canceled. Contacts, blocked. Social media, deleted. Said goodbye without them knowing, or aware of it. I just wanted to be me.

Why is it so hard to be alone these days? Why wouldn’t you? I want to. I want to be alone, to be by myself – to finally be able to breathe. Life is so precious, you wouldn’t want living hating it. It’s why I did what I did.